Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Warriors of Will
by FlameUser64
Summary: Azelf, the being of Willpower, commits suicide, removing all will from the world. Saved by Celebi, the Hero of Oblivia and Indigo League Champion are sent back to find the cause, and prevent it. Rated T for possible language.
1. Exit Willpower, Stage Left

A/N: Hey guys! Bet you've never heard of me, unless I reviewed one of your stories. I used to hang out around the Golden Sun section, but all the stories there lately have sucked, so I started looking around here. Anyway, never mind my ranting, ENJOY!

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><p>Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Warriors of Will<p>

Chapter 1: Exit Willpower, Stage Left

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><p>Valour Lakefront. The resort there is the second most expensive in all of Sinnoh, though it doesn't look it. Accommodations are somewhat scarce, with the exception of the amazing lakefront restaurant. In all seriousness, the only reason for the cost is the amazing view. The sunset shines off the buildings and the nearby lake's surface, coating the place in a faint orange glow. All is peaceful, especially for the two teens sitting on the steps at the north side.<p>

One of them, a male, wears a red jacket with a black t-shirt underneath, black shorts, sneakers, and a black ball cap with a gold stripe down the middle. He could be any random trainer, if he weren't the champion of the Indigo League.

The other is a girl, wearing a red long-sleeved shirt, white shorts, and white leather boots with a red trim. Her striking topaz eyes watch the sunset off to her left. But perhaps the most noticeable feature about her is her outlandish hairstyle. The vast majority of her maple-brown hair is pulled back into an odd triangle shape. Two small spikes of hair come down in the form of bangs, right above her eyes, and a pair of thin pigtails come out at the back. The whole haircut forms a sort of star shape, missing only the top side of the upper left and right points.

Suddenly, her gaze is drawn to the break in the trees leading to the lake. She pokes her companion to get his attention, and wordlessly suggests that they investigate. He shrugs.

"Whatever you say, Lita," he replies carelessly.

The girl, Lita, speaks for the first time in several hours, her expression turning from a small smile to a distinct frown. "DON'T give me that 'whatever' garbage, Ethan!"

Shrugging, Ethan follows her to the shore of Lake Valour. There they witness something spectacular. The lake in front of them explodes with no prior warning, sending water and rock in all directions. From the wreckage a slight ripple is visible. Not a ripple in the water, but a ripple in the air itself. Lita appears to panic, and her form blurs out, revealing a latias.

"Tiaaaa!" The latias releases a piercing cry, and mere moments later a latios shows up. It is just in time, too, as the ripple in the air had been rapidly expanding. It had now reached the shore, being blocked by Latios as he forms a bubble of bright light around the trio.

~~~~~Somewhere~~else~~entirely~~~~~

Summer is taking a "vacation" at the Ranger Base in Almia, while Ben and Rand cover their post in Oblivia. Why had Summer returned? Well, quite frankly, Oblivia was _boring_. Once she'd finished with the whole Pokemon Pinchers and Golden Armour situation, there was not a whole lot left to do. Latias wanted nothing to do with her after the incident with the "Nema-Flyer", and Summer can't blame her.

At present, Summer is hanging around outside the front door of the base with her partner pokemon, Ukulele Pichu. She is on guard duty, which is almost as boring as her post in Oblivia had been. She lets out a small sigh and starts tapping her foot impatiently while scratching Pichu behind the ears. Boredom fails her at that exact moment, as she hears a telepathic cry.

'_Help!_' It's a female voice, and one that seems rather familiar to Summer.

_Was that..._ "Latias?"

Suddenly, a bright yellow portal appears in the air, sucking Summer and Pichu in.

_"_Celebi?" Summer calls as she feels herself being pulled out of the world.

~~~~Five~~minutes~~ago~~~~

After a gut-wrenching journey through time, the portal unceremoniously dumps Summer and Pichu on the shore of the island at the centre of Lake Valour.

"Pi–pichhu?"

"Where... am I?"

Moments later, the time portal forms again, this time dumping out a boy Summer doesn't recognize, and a girl who gives Summer an odd feeling of deja vu._ I feel like I should recognize her, but I've never seen her before..._

As soon as she spots Summer, the girl glares at her and takes an aggressive stance. Her topaz eyes take on an angry gleam, and the sensation of deja vu doubles. It's also accompanied by guilt, and Summer cannot think of any reason as to why.

"Lita, do you know her?" the boy asks, at the same time as Summer voices a very similar question.

"D– do I know you?"

The girl merely growls, then looks away. Summer gets a view of her hairstyle as she does so, and her left hand immediately clasps over her Styler in surprise. _Is – is that... Latias's Ranger Sign? The Eon Emblem? On her HAIR?_

Just as Summer is about to activate her Styler and draw the Ranger Sign, Celebi appears out of another yellow time portal.

'_Come on, there's no time to waste! The explosion will go off in three minutes, we need to head into the cave!_' A panicked-sounding female voice that seems to belong to Celebi enters the minds of everyone present. With that, Celebi flies off into the cave. Ethan shrugs and follows, along with Lita, who walks beside him stiffly. Summer is more confused than anyone, and looks around left and right, then behind her, before following with Pichu behind her.

Once they enter the cave, they are greeted with a strange sight. Azelf is in the middle of the cave, pacing as best as a floating, two-foot-tall Legendary can and ranting telepathically to itself.

'_Those damned humans. What wretched creature destroys a world in which he does not even __**live**__? They killed my brethren in that world. They destroyed the spirits of all who resided in that dimension! They must be punished. Them and all their kind. It cannot compare to the crime they have committed, but they shall have my retribution!_' Azelf pauses and begins to shine a pure white light. Then he calls out the fatal command. '_**EXPLOSION!**_'

Celebi warps them away as the suicidal attack destroys the cave and causes the very force of Will itself to be ripped away from the world, creating a rippling pressure in the air as it annihilates itself in a rapidly-expanding ring.

~~~~...~~...~~~~

Ethan finds himself in an ethereal, yellow-gold void. With him in this void are Lita, Celebi, the weird pichu, and that other girl. He can see them, with the exception of Celebi, standing on nothing in the world of gold, same as him.

"What... what is this place?" Ethan voices the question he expects everyone else is thinking. However, he is surprised by Summer's response.

"We appear to be in a time portal. I've time travelled with Celebi before, but never for this long."

"Pi-pichuuu..."

'_That's because we aren't here to time travel. We're here so I can discuss something with you all._'

Everyone shuts up to hear what Celebi has to say. Not that they really have to, since Celebi uses telepathy, but they do anyway.

'_What I've done is opened the portal, put us in, then closed the portal without opening it somewhere else. We're still anchored to that time though, so if something were to happen you'd all be dumped out at random places in the world at the time you left._' Celebi pauses, presumably to fix her train of thought. '_Anyway, let's not get into that. It's really complicated and not what we're here to talk about. Now, can any of you tell me what happened back there?_'

"Azelf used Explosion." Ethan states the obvious.

"He destroyed the cave, too," Summer continues.

"That would destabilize the power of will itself, would it not?" Lita surmises. Everyone stares at her in shock.

"How do you know this stuff?" Summer asks.

'_I'm an Eon Pokemon. It's my job._'

Summer opens her mouth to respond, but is interrupted by Celebi. '_Lita here is correct. And what's more, Azelf killed itself with that attack. Without its cave intact, this means that willpower has erased itself from the world in your time._'

Summer visibly flinches and stumbles back dramatically. "What?" she cries.

"You've gotta be kidding!" Ethan rhetorically adds.

Celebi ignores him. '_This will remove all ability to plan, to work towards a goal. Civilization itself will end. Certainly, this is something no human or Pokemon wants._'

"Pi! Picchu!"

'_I was getting to that, little one. I have discovered the cause of Azelf's destructive actions. Humans from your world have killed Uxie, Mesprit, and Azelf in an alternate dimension. So here is what you must do. I will send you to the past in that alternate dimension, and you will stop those humans from doing this. Got that?_'

"Yes, sir!" Summer promptly performs her Ranger Pose, while her styler projects the words '**Mission:** _Protect the Spirit Trio!_' into the air above her. Lita fails to stop herself from cheering along with her, and Pichu spins around and twangs his ukulele.

Ethan and Celebi facepalm. '_I'm female,_' Celebi says flatly.

"Sorry, ma'am!"

'_That makes me feel old._'

Ethan looks from Summer to Celebi, and back again. "Are we going, or what?"

Celebi opens the portal, glaring huffily at Ethan the whole time, and the group of four is sucked through to the world visible on the other side. But as they're half-way through the portal, it suddenly closes on them! To Ethan, it feels as though he's being split in half. The pain is enough to make him want to scream, but he never gets the chance as his mind abruptly shuts off.

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><p>AN: OK, now I'm sure you guys are confused, so I'll explain a bit. Lita the latias is Ethan's pokemon. She's the same latias that flies around Kanto after you beat the Indigo League in Heartgold.

The reason Summer reacted the way she did when seeing the time portal, well... if you've played Pokemon Ranger: Guardian Signs, you'll know that the player character in that game, either Ben or Summer, sees Celebi repeatedly, and each time is dragged against their will through a time portal to the past. At this point, it's been a good long while since she last saw Celebi, and then she sees this time portal in front of her while she's in a completely different region from the one she was in when she met Celebi all the previous times.

Anyway, if you liked it, or if you didn't like it, review! And I'll see you people next chapter.


	2. Dramatis Personnae

A/N: Hey guys! I'm back again!

...

*awkward silence*

And this is chapter two, where we get the adventure underway. So without further ado, I present...

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><p>Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Warriors of Will<p>

Chapter 2: Dramatis Personnae

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><p>Summer wakes up to a splitting headache and somewhat nonfunctional eyes. She blinks repeatedly, then sits up slowly. She blinks again, and this time manages to clear the bleariness from her vision. Looking around, she sees that she is on a beach. The sun is already high in the sky, and there is not a single cloud in sight.<p>

_How'd I get here? _she thinks.

Examining her surroundings more closely, she sees that around her are an unconscious charmander and magnemite, as well as Pichu and... _Latias?_ With a start and an instantly cleared headache, she notices that they all seem to be much bigger than they ought to be. Suddenly wondering if she shrank, she looks down at herself... And gets a major shock! Instead of her usual self in her Ranger uniform, she sees a light-blue body and stubby little dark-blue paws. She also appears to have a seashell on her stomach.

Panicking immensely, she runs towards the water's edge and looks down at her reflection off the sea. A large white head with a brown nose, whiskers and little blue ears looks back at her with panicked black eyes.

_I– I'm a pokemon! _Summer realizes belatedly. _But I've never seen this kind of pokemon before..._ She stops looking at her reflection and stands up, gazing at her surroundings once again. _This is just great. I don't even know what SPECIES I am!_

Her eyes fall on the other four Pokemon on the beach a second time. _If I'm a pokemon, then either that charmander or that magnemite is that Ethan guy. But there were only four of us, and now there are five pokemon. Where did the fifth one come from? The other pokemon in our group weren't transformed, so it probably isn't Celebi._ She pauses in her rambling thoughts. _Oh, who cares? I'll just go wake them up!_

_..._

Ethan wakes up to someone poking him on the left shoulder while someone else plays some very loud music in his right ear. It sounds like a badly out-of-tune guitar. Maybe a ukulele? At any rate, it doesn't go very well with his headache.

"Lyra, I don't know where you got that ukulele, but I don't EVER wanna hear it again," he complains sleepily.

"Come on, sleepyhead!" an annoying, childish voice screeches in his ear. "Wake up wake up wake up!"

"Actually, I would advise not opening your eyes until you are certain you won't have a heart attack," Summer's voice announces smugly.

_Ugh, I hate her already,_ Ethan thinks, then... _wait, what?_ He shoots bolt upright and opens his eyes. The first thing he sees is an oshawott looking down at him with its arms crossed. Wait, _down?_ Ethan closes his eyes, shakes his head, then opens them again in an attempt to make sure he's not seeing things. Sure enough, there's an oshawott as big as he is looking down at him, its smirk visible even in its eyes. After a moment, the oshawott extends a hand to him to help him up.

"Up you come, charmander," it says in Summer's voice as he takes its hand and pulls himself to his feet. Its comment is so confounding that he completely fails to notice that his hand is decidedly nonhuman and also _orange_.

"What do you mean, _c__harmander_?" he asks. "And how can you talk? And why do you have Summer's voice?" Then his mind suddenly processes what his eyes saw a few seconds ago. He holds his hand up in front of his face and shrieks "AND WHY IS MY HAND _ORANGE_? What the hell?"

"Well, your hands are orange because you're now a charmander, obviously. And I have Summer's voice because I _am_ Summer. And pokemon could always talk. They just can't speak human languages. But you can understand me because you're presently a pokemon as well," Summer begins answering all his questions at once. "I assume you're Ethan? I doubt a decidedly _male_ human would be turned into a genderless pokemon, after all."

At her unexpected question, Ethan looks around. He sees Summer's pichu, who has remained remarkably quiet, standing just to his right. Off to the left, down the beach he sees Lita unconscious in her normal form, along with a magnemite which was also apparently unconscious. Wait a second, who was the magnemite? Surely Celebi wouldn't be with them, and if she were she wouldn't be transformed.

"Yeah, I'm Ethan, but where'd the magnemite come from?"

"We're wondering that too! Also also, where's Celebi?" Pichu speaks up.

Ethan eyes the ukulele-wielding pichu with distaste._ Ah, so _he _was that annoying childish voice from before, _he thinks.

Suddenly the magnemite wakes up, spewing seemingly random gibberish.

"The location where this styler received spatial-temporal shock was:

X-coordinate **beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep** ERROR: GPS Data Unavailable

Y-coordinate **beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep** ERROR: GPS Data Unavailable

Global Positioning System offline.

Regional Position Tracker offline; data unavailable from Ranger Union.

...Detecting source of long-range magnetic field. Coordinates in relation to magnetic source:

X-coordinate -0023182901

Y-coordinate -0150764013"

"What's up with _that_ thing?" Ethan asks.

"You've GOT to be kidding," Summer exclaims.

"Huh?"

"My styler's Voice Nav. got turned into a Pokemon as well? This is absurd."

Pichu starts giggling, while Summer sighs, then asks: "Voice Nav., do you think you can locate a nearby town?"

"But wouldn't it be better to try and find the location of one of the members of the Spirit Trio first?" Ethan comments.

"And how are we gonna do that without talking to people–er, pokemon, exactly?" Summer retorts.

Voice Nav. promptly interrupts their argument. "There seems to be a large gathering of life forms approximately 2000 units west of here."

"Alright, west it is!" Pichu cheers.

"...Unconscious Legendary Pokemon located 3 units east and 1 unit north of here. The pokemon is Latias," Voice Nav. drones.

"Oh, right!" Summer exclaims. "You should go wake her up, Ethan; she won't want to talk to me."

_Why would she not want to talk to Summer?_ Ethan thinks, even as he walks up to her to wake her up.

'_Ugh, what hit me?_' Latias asks groggily, after being poked by Ethan.

"Come on, Lita, time to get up. And don't bother with telepathy, we can understand you anyway. Though, I have absolutely no idea how this happened to us." Ethan says in a strange, detached tone.

The Latias's eyes slowly flicker open, then immediately blink closed again before opening _very_ wide. "What in Arceus's name happened? How are you a charmander? And is that oshawott over there Summer?"

"Yep. Top Ranger Summer, reporting for action!" Summer cries, performing her Ranger Pose and subconsciously removing the seashell from her stomach to use in place of her styler. She peers curiously at the shell she now holds in her hands. _I didn't even know this thing detached!_ she thinks. _It looks kinda sharp. Is it a weapon?_ She finds that it reattaches very easily, somehow.

"It seems you've discovered your scalchop." Ethan states with a slight, awkward-sounding chuckle.

"Scal...chop? What?" Summer replies, confused.

"A scalchop is a weapon used by oshawott's evolutionary line. It's quite sharp and also functions as a shield. If thrown correctly, it can be made to return to its wielder. An early technique an oshawott learns allows it to extend a blade of water from the scalchop, to function as a sort of beam sword," Ethan explains.

_This guy has more info than a Regional Browser. He's like a walking encyclopedia!_ Summer thinks, amazed.

"...Plotted destination: large gathering of life forms, 2000 units west of here." Voice Nav. once again has to get the group back on track.

"Really? Cool, let's go!" Lita cheers.

Thus, the group gets underway to what they hope is a pokemon town or village.

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><p>Roughly an hour later, the group's travel is interrupted in a forest clearing by the appearance of four rattata and a raticate.<p>

"Hyahh. Lessee what you guys've got, eh? Any valuables you have, I want em!" The raticate, apparently the leader, growls.

"They have the Red Eon with them. Are you sure we should do this, Boss?" One of the rattata squeaks, frightened.

"Yah, what's the difference? Just take out the others first, then we can all gang up on the big one, she should go down easily."

"You punks are lookin' for a fight? Well you got one! Hah!" Pichu pulls out his ukulele and holds it as if it were a club.

"Be careful. We need to make sure to take them one-on-one. I'll deal with the raticate, the rest of you take a rattata each. If we let them take us two at a time, we'll go down fast," Lita warns. "Even I won't be able to do much against the five of them together."

"Affirmative," Voice Nav. responds, heading towards one of the Rattata.

"Got it!" Summer cries. She instinctively enters a Ranger's capture pose with her scalchop held in front of her, before realizing her mistake and hesitantly transitioning into a novice fighting stance.

"Ha! What's with you, scaredy meowth?" One of the rattata asks, advancing on her. The rattata that had been next to him has already been drawn away by Pichu, who is making silly and insulting faces at it.

"Nothing. Bring it!" Summer attempts to jab the rattata with her free hand, discovering the hard way just how small an oshawott's stubby arms are. Her opponent laughs at her, and she responds by cutting downwards with the scalchop, striking his ear.

The rattata hunches down, then appears to blur for a moment and Summer takes a powerful hit to the stomach. This repeats a second time as Summer staggers from the first blow. "Too slow for me, ain't ya?" he taunts.

While he's talking, Summer's new instincts as a pokemon kick in. _Shut up!_ she thinks in frustration, as she feels an odd force build up in the left side of her body, where her shoulder would be if an oshawott actually had recognizable shoulders. She quickly rams her opponent, and is surprised to see him go flying into the trunk of a tree.

Summer watches her foe pick himself up from the impact. _I really don't want to be hit by one of those Quick Attacks again. If only I had some sort of ranged attack. Maybe I could throw my shell at him?_ She pulls her arm back to do so, and as she starts to throw the scalchop thrums with a strange energy, causing her to release her hold on it awkwardly. It goes flipping up into the air, and as she stumbles when catching it she makes a downwards slashing motion with it by accident. She is again surprised; the action produces a shuriken-shaped blade of wind which slices through the air towards her opponent. The attack knocks him back to the ground just as he starts to regain his balance.

"Hey, that was cool!" Summer shouts excitedly. "Let's try it again! Air Slash!" This time she tosses the shell up neatly, her eyes tracing its path through the air as she attempts to gauge where she has to be to catch it. The mere thought again produces the white glow of energy from before. As it falls she steps forward, catches it and slashes downwards. Once again it releases a spinning grey shuriken of air at her opponent, who by this point is up and bracing himself for the hit. It turns out he is not as ready as he thinks he is; the projectile strikes his head, cutting off his whiskers as it throws him to the ground, unconscious.

Summer turns her back on her ex-opponent, looking back at him over her shoulder (or lack thereof), as he lies sprawled in the dirt, his whiskers spread neatly on the ground around his face. Then, holding her scalchop at her side, she gives her best attempt at a post-mortem one-liner.

"Haven't you ever had scallops before? You're supposed to eat the inside, not the shell."

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><p>Meanwhile, Ethan is attempting to fight off his own enemy, not at all familiar with his new charmander body. He and his rattata opponent circle each other, while the rattata volleys insults at him. Eventually having had enough he growls at the rattata, though much to his embarrassment it comes out more like a rather cute purr.<p>

His opponent laughs at him. "Hah, it's a little baby charmander! This fight should be easy."

Ethan rushes his opponent with nothing on his mind but pure hatred. His opponent blurs for a moment as he strikes with Quick Attack, but the rattata doesn't put his full strength into it, thinking to use the minimum amount of force needed to take out his seemingly weak opponent. He regrets that rather quickly, as the attack is too weak for Ethan to even flinch. He pounds the rattata on the head with his balled fist, then the claws on his right... hand? glint dangerously for a moment as he scratches his foe across the face. And just for good measure, he bites down on the enemy's head, his teeth seeming to grow longer as he does so.

After a moment, Ethan releases his opponent from his jaws and backs up, embarrassed at having stuck someone's head in his mouth. He sees that the rattata is unconscious. "W-well, that wasn't so bad...!" he stutters, blushing slightly. Then he turns his attention to the ongoing fight between Lita and Raticate.

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><p>AN: And that's the chapter! How'd I do on my first fight scene?

Edit: October 12, 2012: It's been far too long since I updated this thing. Sorry about that. I've made some minor edits to hopefully fix some of my epic fail at setting and characters.

Edit: October 18, 2013: Again, fixed a few spelling mistakes, as well as a potential minor plot hole. And this story isn't quite dead just yet!

Edit: January 9, 2014: Again with grammar fixes and minor edits to make it read slightly better.


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